Tuesday, 30 June 2015

It is finally the time to reveal the Amsterdam inspired journal that I have to create for a mother of one of my clients. She loved the view of colourful houses she saw in Amsterdam while traveling and so her son decided to give her a memorable gift of a place they both went together. Isn't that amazing how caring some children can be?

I took this picture as an inspiration for a water reflection and the other picture you see bellow was a colour scheme choice of my client.

He wanted the street view, but I understood that the only way it will work on a vertical portrait format is a water reflection. First of all this will make the composition right and second I was itching to try and make my very first water reflection on polymer clay. I knew it was possible so I challenged myself to do it!

This again was one of these projects that won't look right from the very beginning until almost very end. I did stress a lot and constantly asked for guidance from my trusted clay friends and Ash. He might not know a lot about clay, but as an artist he could tell me if something looked right or wrong. So as you can see, first I had a very childish beginning where my houses looked so funny and when Ashley came into the room he said : "Ooou! Beach huts scene! Nice".. I slapped myself on the forehead and told him that this will be a nightmare of a project :)

I tried hard and I used textures, shapes, forms, vegetation, flower beds, but without a paint work this artwork still looked like a kids design. I decided that I will complete it no matter how it will look. I just have to trust the guiding spirit!

It was nice to discover in the process some simple but very effective techniques for creating multiple windows with complicated frames and how to texturise a miniature trees.

As you can see on the picture bellow, I used Dots & Scratches tool for the trees and I used some rectangular cardboard pieces to press them into the clay. When you pull the off clay, you get a lovely even square imprint. And to make it look even more detailed, I searched for something that has a square type section. It happened to be a simple match :) And so I pressed it into each window multiple times to create window frames and small window sections. That was a lot of fun and eased the process of sculpting very much!

I couldn't wait to start the painting as all my hopes relayed on it!

And finally when the journal was finished I could see that it worked out well. Especially if you look at it from a little bit of a distance, it looks like a painting and this made me really happy!

And here are some larger close up shots. Click on these to zoom in. Especially the close ups as you will then see more details, like a little bike under the tree for example. I loved making it so much. It is only 8mm long.

Thank you so much for reading,

I always appreciate your input and comments, otherwise why would I bother writing and showing all this? This if for you :)